“Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.” – Charles Ferguson – Predator Nation

The Federal Reserve released its Survey of Consumer Finances last week. It’s a fact filled 80 page report they issue every three years to provide a financial snapshot of American households. As you can see from the chart above, the impact of the worldwide financial collapse has been catastrophic to most of the households in the U.S. A 39% decline in median net worth over a three year time frame is almost incomprehensible. Even worse, the decline has surely continued for the average American household through 2012 as home prices have continued to fall. Median family income plunged by 7.7% over a three year time frame and has not recovered since the collection of this data 18 months ago. Even more shocking is the fact that median household income was $48,900 in 2001. Families are making 6.3% less today than they were a decade ago. These figures are adjusted for inflation using the BLS massaged CPI figures. Anyone not under the influence of psychotic drugs or engaged as a paid shill for the financial oligarchy knows that inflation is purposely under reported in order to keep the masses sedated and pacified. The real decline in median household income is in excess of 20% since 2001.

The destruction of the blue collar jobs has been underway since the early 1970s. And the relentless decline in real blue collar wages has followed a bumpy downward path for decades. Sadly, the average person doesn’t understand the insidious destruction caused to their lives by the Federal Reserve generated inflation, as they actually believe their wages today are higher than they were in 1973. The reality is the oligarchy has used foreign wage differentials and the perceived benefits of globalization to ship manufacturing and now service jobs to Asia while using their captured mainstream media to convince the average American that this has been beneficial to their lives. Using one of their 15 credit cards to buy cheap foreign goods made by people who took their jobs was never so easy. I wonder if the benefits of being able to buy cheap Chinese electronics, toxic dog food, and slave labor produced igadgets outweighed the $2.3 trillion increase in consumer debt, 27% decline in real wages, 7 million manufacturing jobs lost since the mid-1970s, 46 million people on food stamps, $15 trillion increase in the National Debt since 1978, and a gutted decaying industrial base.

Not only have the oligarchs gutted our industrial base, resulting in enormous job losses among middle aged industrial workers, but they are now in the process of impoverishing the youth of this country by sucking them into crushing college debt with the false promise of decent paying jobs when they graduate with a degree in feminist studies from the University of Phoenix. The fabricated mantra that a college education guarantees a good paying job and a better future is not borne out by the facts. There are over 4,800 institutions of higher learning in this country, with only about 50 considered elite. There are another few hundred top notch institutions, with a few thousand mediocre schools and hundreds of for profit on-line diploma mills exploiting the easy Federal government debt to lure millions into their profit scheme of bilking unemployed naïve middle aged dupes and eventually the American taxpayer. The average student loan debt per student is $29,000. Student loan debt outstanding has risen from $200 billion in 2000 to over $1 trillion today. The Federal Government is blowing another bubble. They are the issuer, regulator and guarantor of these loans. They are making the loans with teaser rates to the ultimate in subprime borrowers – students without jobs going for worthless degrees at mediocre schools. The taxpayer is on the hook for the billions in loses that will surely follow. The payoff for this quadrupling of debt has been an 8% real decline in wages for college graduates since 2000. The monetary policies of the Federal Reserve and bipartisan fiscal policies of our government have led to this dreadful job market for the middle class.

The mainstream media dutifully reported a few key highlights from the Federal Reserve report and moved onto more important issues like Snooki’s pregnancy and the octomom’s new porno gig. We certainly couldn’t expect business journalists at Bloomberg, CNBC, NYT, or CNN to actually analyze the data, produce an intelligent dialogue of the causes, and reach a conclusion that the affluent and influential on Wall Street and in Washington DC caused the average family in this country to endure tremendous hardship while the oligarchy plundered and pillaged the countryside, stuffing their pockets with ill-gotten gains. Each of the ideological camps within the oligarchy trot out the usual suspects to blame the other ideological camp, while doing nothing to change the existing paradigm. Krugman and Carville are assigned the task of blaming Republican policies and dogma for the demise of the middle class. Obama and his minions already had their press release prepared, blaming George Bush and claiming the median family has made tremendous strides since he assumed command in2009. Mitt Romney (worth $250 million), whose pocket change exceeds the annual median household income of $45,800, feels the pain of the average American family and proposes a tax decrease for billionaires and less overbearing regulation on the honorable Wall Street banks in order to help the average family. It’s nothing but Kabuki Theater as the characters play their assigned parts in this elaborate display. Gary Wills cuts right to the chase:

“Yet while the rest of the populace was suffering, the rich just got richer. In 2009 and 2010, years in which millions were unable to find work, the top one percent reaped 93% of the ‘recovery’ income, and corporations are making more than they ever did. And the Republicans can still propose even further cuts in the taxes of ‘job creators’ whose only job creation has been for their own lawyers and lobbyists.”

What you will not receive from the corporate mouthpieces in the mainstream media is an explanation of where the money went, who stole it and why it happened. The theme from the media is the loss in net worth and decade long decline in household income was unavoidable and due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control. This is a false storyline perpetrated by those who have stolen your money. It’s been a bipartisan screw job and it was initiated by Clinton, Rubin, Gramm and Leach, who deregulated the banking system in 1999 by repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, but made it clear the Greenspan Put would always be in place to protect the banks from their own recklessness, greed and hubris. As a result, Wall Street could go ahead and take irresponsible financial system destroying risks in pursuit of vast riches, knowing they could count on the unlimited checkbook of Uncle Sam if things went south, and that’s exactly what happened. Heads they won, tails you lost. It’s good to own the politicians, regulators, and media.

Dude, Where’s My Net Worth?

“Sometime around the year 2010, Xers will hit a hangover mood like that of the Lost in the early 1930s and the Liberty in the late 1760s: a feeling of personal exhaustion mixed with a new public seriousness. The members of this forty- and fiftyish generation will fan out across an unusually wide distribution of personal outcomes, reminiscent of a night at the bingo table. A few will be wildly successful, others totally ruined, and the largest number will have lost a little ground since the days of Boomer midlife.” – Strauss & Howe – Generations – 1991

Neil Howe and Bill Strauss wrote their first generational theory book six years prior to their epic Fourth Turning prophecy. It appears they nailed it. Generation X households saw their net worth crushed, with a 54% loss in three years. The Baby Boomer households also took a beating in this banker engineered financial collapse. The Silent generation has survived this downturn relatively unscathed. Most of the Silents traded down from their primary residence at or near the top of the housing boom. As Neil Howe points out:

“Most sold or annuitized their financial assets at a much better moment in the history of the Dow. Even if they didn’t, they are more likely than Boomers or Xers to be getting retirement checks from defined-benefit corporate or government plans that are unaffected by the market.”

The Millenials and late Xers did not lose much because they didn’t have much to lose. Most did not own a house or stocks. As the economy continues to deteriorate the generational tension builds. The Silents and Boomers, who vote in large numbers, have not and will not vote for anyone who attempts to reform our entitlement system and make it economically viable over the long-term for young people just entering the job market.

The false storyline about the 2007 through 2010 being an aberration in the long term path to prosperity for the average American family is refuted by the following chart.

This chart paints a long-term picture of generational inequality that has been going on over the last three decades. Over three decades the Silent generation has seen their median real net worth increase by 133%, while GenX has seen their median real net worth decrease by 55% compared to the same age cohort in 1983. Only those 55 and over have seen a real improvement in their net worth over the last 27 years. Considering this period encompassed a seventeen year bull market and the GDP grew from $3.5 trillion to $15.7 trillion, a 450% increase, a few bucks should have trickled down to the average household. Even on an inflation adjusted basis, GDP has risen 125% since 1983. Evidently the economic policies supported by both parties across decades have not floated all boats – just the yachts. Age is only part of the equation. Class is the other piece. There is a class war being waged and the Buffett, Dimon, Blankfein, Romney, Clinton, Koch and the rest of the ultra-wealthy oligarchs are winning. We are now in the midst of a Fourth Turning and the corrupt, dysfunctional, amoral social order will be swept away before the climax of this Crisis.

“Through the Third Turning and into the initial stages of the Fourth, the Silent will prosper, Boomers will cope with declining expectations, and Gen-Xers will get hammered. Throughout history, we have argued, inequality both by class and by age reaches its apogee entering the Crisis era. Indeed, part of the historical purpose of the Crisis is to tear down dysfunctional institutions, vacate positions of entitlement and privilege, rectify the inequality, and create a tabula rasa on which the rising generation can build something new.” – Neil Howe

The reason for the epic collapse of middle class net worth is quite simple when viewed from a 10,000 foot elevation. The great descent in net worth was primarily due to the bursting of the Federal Reserve created real estate bubble. The Case Shiller Home Price Index plunged 28% between 2007 and 2010. The wealth destruction was concentrated among the working middle class because their homes accounted for the vast majority of their household net worth. For the wealthy, housing is a fraction of their vast net worth, while for the lowly poor; homeownership is now only a dream. Of course, between 2000 and 2007 anyone that could fog a mirror was encouraged by George Bush, Barney Frank, the National Association of Realtors, Alan Greenspan, and Wall Street shills to “own” a home. With home prices having fallen an additional 7% since 2010, the middle class has seen a further decline in their net worth. Meanwhile, Ben Bernanke’s ZIRP, QE1, QE2, Operation Twist, and the upcoming “Operation Screw the Middle Class Again” have succeeded in expanding the net worth of millionaires, billionaires and the bonuses of Wall Street bankers, while destroying the fragile finances of little old ladies and middle class risk adverse savers.

Once you dig into the details beneath the thin veneer of Bernaysian obfuscation, you realize the corporate mainstream media storyline of middle class decline has a veiled storyline of a powerful, connected 1%, enriched at the expense of the middle class.

In Part 2 of this three part series I will examine who stole your net worth and in Part 3 why they stole your net worth. Part 4 will require pitchforks, torches and a guillotine.

129 Comments

ThePessimisticChemist says:

My father (an early Xer) had his assets completely crushed. My college fund, his stocks, pretty much everything. Luckily he sold his home at the tip of the housing bubble and made bank, else he’d be screwed right now.

A CNNMoney analysis of new Census Bureau data shows that if you strip out the effects of the housing collapse, median household net worth still fell by 25% between 2005 and 2010. The decline was driven largely by the plummeting stock market, which devastated Americans’ portfolios and retirement accounts.

Overall, median household net worth declined 35% to $66,740 in 2010.

The median worth of stock and mutual fund portfolios fell 33%, while the median home equity value dropped 28%.
======================

Not as high quality as what we find here, but its better than Snooki-watch.

And to clarify the above comment, there are certainly crooks, thieves, and banksters galore feasting off ill-gotten gain. But make no mistake – they can only succeed if the people allow it. And the people have allowed it.

Nice, Admin. Best line, “Evidently the economic policies supported by both parties across decades have not floated all boats – just the yachts.”

I submit that the bravest elected official in America will be the individual who steps forward and explains to the public that “An Axis of Evil exists right here in America. An axis that is doing more damage to the nation than al Qaeda ever dreamed. After 9/11, President Bush addressed the country and identified the Axis of Evil as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. That may have been true then, but today the locations have changed. It is now New York and Washington.”

His or her time in office is likely to be less than 24 hours after delivering those lines.

Criminals.Congress.lobbyist. People with enough pull to effect change that favors themselves with no long term thinking for the country or others.
In anouther time and place the congress would be led to the rope or guilotine.

[…] WHO DESTROYED THE MIDDLE CLASS – PART 1 « The Burning Platform “Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to th… […]

I need to get a handle on your issue with Israel. I get it that many of the TBTF banks in New York have Jewish CEOs, led by the King of Financial Fucksticks, Lloyd Blankfein. And I get this article’s central point of the country’s ills is financially based, with which I agree and said so above.

But what I don’t get is your animus towards Israel. I know that many “flash theories” are available out there, but do you have one that has any semblance of credibility?

All I can say is the middle class has been getting what they have been voting for all these years. They have the nation and the system they have built and supported. They’ve stood by and even cheered while the flag of freedom and liberty has been desecrated while being waved over murder and imperialist violence.

They have promoted mediocrity over excellence. They wallow in the halls of fast food gluttony that they have inspired. They worship the lean and beautiful but live in a land where junk food is legion and delude themselves with an endless supply of magic diet schemes.

They said they wanted truth but not if it was painful so they got was Reality TV and the pandering media they so love. They wanted excitement, adventure and romance with out risk and they found it in the movies,on TV and in video games where they too can be heroes.

They built the shittyist most gas guzzling cars in the world and expected their neighbors to buy them.
They wanted cheaper and faster but did not want to work cheaper and faster so came the rise of the Red Commie Chinese fuckers who would work cheaper and faster.

They wanted an education not out of curiosity, interest or passion but to have a piece of paper that guaranteed them an excellent paycheck for half ass work where they would never have to break a sweat or toil to become a master of anything. Their children barrow tens of thousands of dollars to get these pieces of paper that only prove they know little of value and have no skills. Yet they expect someone to hire them at good wages when they couldn’t even fill the shoes of some monkey ass Asian assembly line worker.

They wanted it all right now and the bankers, the politicians and the big box Chinese goods outlets gave it to them. For a long time the real American dream has been to get a ticket on the cheap to ride the gravy train so unions morphed from agents of fair pay and decent working conditions into expensive monsters that crush competitive trade driving jobs away.

As far as I can see the middle class got what they deserve and they are going to get more of it. Of course they are doomed as we all are. The vast majority of them will not embrace the doom or try to adapt on there own. First they will complain about it, then get outraged by it, then get as reactionary as much as soft, delusional often overweight people can. What they will actually accomplish if anything is unknown but what ever they do it will be for shit.

When you get time, go to a car dealership and check the prices. Time is coming when the average person won’t be able to buy one under any circumstances
Our entire economy is a fairy tale, a fantasy built on a buy now pay later ponzi scheme.
How much longer can it last ?

WOW…when I was attempting to post these links they were not appearing so I assumed WP had a spam filter that prevented running multiple links in a post, so I attempted to break them up…an voila’ , they all appear.
so solly….

No doubt free trade and lassez faire capitalism worked against the American worker, and for unbridled capitalism to the extent it benefits the top 1%.

One can even argue the ethos of building iPads using slave labor in China.

From a free market standpoint, globalization works. It just sucks if you’re the one with surplus wages. When US industry went abroad to exploit cheap labor and resources, there wasn’t any other possible outcome except the loss of US based industry and jobs.

Unfortunately for the average citizen, the US Congress doesn’t care as long as they’re getting theirs. Which is why when the reset happens, their pension and benefits should be the first to be nationalized, as unfunded entitlements, and they should be put on SS and Medicare.

Thanks RE, I’m currently stocking up on potlatch gifts to trade with the various tribes after the collapse of our current system “to let people do as they wish.” capitalism.

Of course ,after the collapse, the various tribes will have to set up a system of governance that regulates and subsidizes potlatch trade else the markets may again revert to the destructive practice of “to let people do as they wish.” potlatch.

[…] The destruction of the blue collar jobs has been underway since the early 1970s. And the relentless decline in real blue collar wages has followed a bumpy downward path for decades. Sadly, the average person doesn’t understand the insidious destruction caused to their lives by the Federal Reserve generated inflation, as they actually believe their wages today are higher than they were in 1973. The reality is the oligarchy has used foreign wage differentials and the perceived benefits of globalization to ship manufacturing and now service jobs to Asia while using their captured mainstream media to convince the average American that this has been beneficial to their lives. Read more […]

I wonder what percentage of those people who are considered middle-class in these studies are non-white. Pretty high, I’d bet. I remember that a year or two before the loan flood gates were opened, there was much whining and hand-wringing in the MSM (especially NPR, aka National Prava Radio) about how the poor Mexican and black minorities were being descriminated against because they had a harder time qualifying for mortgage loans. I bet that many of those same blacks and Mexicans now wish they hadn’t been given the “opportunity” to qualify for those liars’ loans afterall. Race-hustlers, banksters, politicians, MSM commentators, and commies are all cut from the same cloth.

When EVERYTHING is made in China, how can we have a real nation? Soon you will either be a government worker, roll burritos at Taco Bell, or fly on your own corporate jet because you have a factory in China somewhere. There is nothing in between. Goodbye to you, middle class!
I stopped buying Levis jeans twenty or more years ago when they doubled the price and shipped their manufacturing to South America. Now you CAN’T find any jeans made in America, or shoes, or bicycles (under a thousand dollars), or electronics (unless you want to buy a new fire control system for your F16), or ships, or …………
Wake up people!!!!! Say NO to Walmart, say no to China, it may already be too late!

A boomer stopped by my fence the other day. She’s about 60 years old, 5’2, 225 lbs. She was riding on her scooter of course. She was beefing about a road up the street and how our water board sucks. She doesn’t want to be on it, just bitch about it. She also thinks the fed needs to take over child welfare so locals don’t have to care for their own children. Wouldn’t let me get a word in, finally just walked away from her. What a posterchild! Boomers suck!!!

[…] google_color_bg = ""; google_color_text = ""; google_color_url = ""; google_ui_features = "rc:0"; theburningplatform.com / By James Quinn /June 19, 2012“Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over […]

I used to get a little pissy about my own plight from middle class to the lower…. Sure, I’m doing the median net worth thing, maybe above or below if you count my little lady and I together…. My income, for the moment…. yeah. About the same as the rest.

Oh, I forgot…. those stats don’t compare to the area I’m in, but still:

I feel lower class because I’m not buying things on credit. I feel lower class because I started renting a room this year. I feel lower class because I haven’t REALLY vacationed since ’06. I feel lower class because I buy my clothes, for the most part, at a hardware store… I feel lower class because I pack a lunch.

But wait…. That account’s growing (listen to llpoh and Muckula kids). Wait…. everyone else is purchasing overall depreciating assets on credit. Wait… The long-time coming bachelor’s degree (don’t laugh, let me have goals) is in sight and I don’t have a loan!

Best of all I feel great. I feel blessed. I’m not missing out on things I never really had, though reliable transportation would be nice again…

I faced reality a few years ago and have learned to love it like an old friend that always pops in in the course of life.

This guy is a libtard and progressive, but wrote this fairly good book. Easy read also.

The American middle class is on its deathbed.

Ordinary folks who put in a solid day’s work can no longer afford to buy a house, send their kids to college, or even get sick. It’s a covert war corporations are waging against America’s middle class; a war that’s reducing the rest of us to a politically impotent working poor. If you’re not a CEO, you’re probably screwed.

The American middle class that was so carefully constructed by our country’s founding fathers has been systematically dismantled over the past quarter-century, and, under the guise of “freeing” the market, replaced by a system designed to line the pockets of the super-rich and corporations.

Born in 1957, working since 71, I have yet to get in that boat that floats with the tides. I made much more money in 74 before I even had a drivers license. For 40+ years I’ve been paying my taxes and funding the “silent” generation. I resent the implication by the gen x’ers, millenials etc, that I have somehow taken advantage of them and of the system. I came of age in the oil embargo days and have seen nothing but continuing boom-bust cycles, with the economy getting worse everytime. How can we have a population go from @200 million @ 1970 to 350 million in 2010 and not have the workers to support the SS system? The only explanation for the SS crisis is the congresscritters keep stealing the money!

Debt,
It’s so insidious. Debt has helped hasten the decline of the middle class. It’s enslaved about everyone in the U.S., and most of the world for that matter. The banksters and the rich are the slave owners, issuing the plastic balls and chains so people can consume more crap. There won’t be protests, flames or pitchforks as long as everyone is nicely and deeply in debt. And you work and work to get out of debt, an poof, you’re out of debt, but then you are just even; you’ve worked your ass off to break even.

And then who blew up the debt bubble? Who couldn’t get enough debt, who couldn’t buy enough crap (most of it foreign, good bye economy and jobs), who couldn’t live in a big enough house or drive the best cars? Who couldn’t eat enough, ballooning into the fattest generation in the history of mankind? Who saved nothing, and are soon to be wards of the bankrupt state? Boomers.

The end result of debt and consumption is always the same, only it hollowed out our economy and made entire Asian and Middle Eastern nations rich. Sorry, no trade backs.

The picture is even worse when you look consider productivity as well as inflation. After all, keeping up with inflation isn’t enough to pay for advances in technology – it just tracks the same basket of goods and services over time.

Imagine earning a 1912 salary in inflation adjusted terms today. It would be fine if you didn’t need/want a car, computer, television, cell phone, etc.

The Feds are spending $1.4 trillion dollars we don’t have. It should be a bonanza.

“Under Barack Obama, the United States has been indulging in a debt binge unlike anything ever seen in U.S. history. The following is from a recent Forbes article….

After just one year of the Obama spending binge, federal spending had already rocketed to 25.2% of GDP, the highest in American history except for World War II. That compares to 20.8% in 2008, and an average of 19.6% during Bush’s two terms. The average during President Clinton’s two terms was 19.8%, and during the 60-plus years from World War II until 2008 — 19.7%. Obama’s own fiscal 2013 budget released in February projects the average during the entire 4 years of the Obama Administration to come in at 24.4% in just a few months. That budget shows federal spending increasing from $2.983 trillion in 2008 to an all time record $3.796 trillion in 2012, an increase of 27.3%.

Moreover, before Obama there had never been a deficit anywhere near $1 trillion. The highest previously was $458 billion, or less than half a trillion, in 2008. The federal deficit for the last budget adopted by a Republican controlled Congress was $161 billion for fiscal year 2007. But the budget deficits for Obama’s four years were reported in Obama’s own 2013 budget as $1.413 trillion for 2009, $1.293 trillion for 2010, $1.3 trillion for 2011, and $1.327 trillion for 2012, four years in a row of deficits of $1.3 trillion or more, the highest in world history.

Barack Obama almost seems more focused on his golf game than on the problems the global economy is having. He just finished up playing his 100th round of golf since he became president.”

No, WHAT Destroyed the middle class. The same thing that created it. EASY CREDIT. Buy now, pay later, enjoy the good life today and pay for it tomorrow. As for the who? The people who encouraged the easy credit, the people who extended the easy credit AND the people who took the easy credit. I guess that covers most all of us.

[…] = ""; google_color_url = ""; google_ui_features = "rc:0"; theburningplatform.com / June 20, 2012In Part 1 of this three part series I addressed where and how the net worth of the middle class was stolen. […]

SSS – when it comes to DPZarathustra, he is a conspiracy theorist nutjob when it comes to Israel. He is just a run-of-the-mill anti-semite. He has compared their “atrocities” to those of Hitler, etc., and has praised the sanity of that monumental terrosrist Arafat. He has no understanding of the history of the Jews, and hence cannot formulate a sane position.

I am not a big fan of the formation of Israel. It was a monumental mistake. However, there is plenty of blame to go around – US, Britain, France, Palestinians, the Arab world in general for not assisting in formulating a solution, and of course Israel itself. Personally, I have no doubt whatsoever that Israel would like nothing more than peace – and to keep Jerusalem, of course – but is surrounded by hundreds of millions of folks who want to see them eradicated. I understand the Palestinians wanting this, but the rest of the Arab world is insane in this pursuit.

“I need to get a handle on your issue with Israel. I get it that many of the TBTF banks in New York have Jewish CEOs, led by the King of Financial Fucksticks, Lloyd Blankfein. And I get this article’s central point of the country’s ills is financially based, with which I agree and said so above.

But what I don’t get is your animus towards Israel. I know that many “flash theories” are available out there, but do you have one that has any semblance of credibility?”

SSS, I have commented about the folly of the US alliance with Israel for as long as I’ve been a reader of this blog (since 2009). It has nothing to do with jews in general. It has to do with wealthy jews in America who put Israel’s interests above that of their own country, as well as their fellow traveling gentiles (christian zionists). I honestly believe that we should simply end diplomatic relations with that country until they open up their nuclear arms stockpile for an accounting, so that none of their nukes can be used for terroristic purposes and that they come to an equitable agreement with the Palestinians. It is not our job that our wealth and military forces be employed to secure the interests of a foreign government. Israel IS our greatest enemy, at present and by fighting its’ wars we have rightly earned the enmity of the entire world.

LOOKS LIKE I STRUCK A NERVE. SIMPLY HYSTERICAL. EMAIL RECEIVED THIS AFTERNOON:

This email is to inform you to correct your article entitled “Who destroyed the middle class?” University of Phoenix does not provide a degree in feminist studies. You error certainly destroyed the credibility of your article.

DPZ comes back with some of thwe stupidest shit ever. No proof whatsoever does he provide that rich Jews ar putting Israel first (maybe, though, as a standard of loyalty does tend to be God first, then country). He demands that Israel allow an accounting of their nukes. Hey – while we are at it, why not demand the US do the same, for the same reasons! And Russia. And Pakistan. And India. And if they do not, let’s cut off diplomatic relations with them.

And just what “wars” have we fought for Israel? Seriously, what wars? Maybe you mean Iraq? The Jews sure started that one. Afghanistan? How about Viet Nam?

Oh Yeah!!! I told Jan he worked for a diploma mill. He is not happy with me. I fired back. Can’t wait for his next response.

How angry and insulting you are and misinformed! We have hundreds of thousands of successful graduates that have high level positions. Our professors and instructors are from 750 of the top Fortune 1000 companies. You can view our graduates stories at http://www.phoenix.edu . Or perhaps you would like to enroll in a class here and then become informed.

Llpoh, you are delusional. I’ll just provide one example. Sheldon Richman just gave $10 million to Romney. He is married to a rabid zionist. I’m sure he attached a note to it advising not to attack Iran.

PS, Yes. Iraq was mostly about getting rid of a dictator who fired scuds into Israel. That and because W held a grudge over Saddam for an alleged plot to whack his dad after the first gulf war.

DPZ’s logic – a Jew who is married to someone who loves Israel gave money to Romney, therefore Israel is evil. Too fucking funny. That is your proof? And attacking Iraq was because of skuds? Hmm, maybe that played a part –

Your brain rolling down the edge of a razorblade is akin to a bb rolling down a 4 lane interstate.

:”DPZ comes back with some of thwe stupidest shit ever. No proof whatsoever does he provide that rich Jews ar putting Israel first (maybe, though, as a standard of loyalty does tend to be God first, then country). He demands that Israel allow an accounting of their nukes. Hey – while we are at it, why not demand the US do the same, for the same reasons! And Russia. And Pakistan. And India. And if they do not, let’s cut off diplomatic relations with them.”

By assassinating iranian nuclear scientists and unleashing viruses such as flash and stuxnet on the world, Israel as proven itself a terrorist nation. If we are ever nuked during peacetime, it is a near certainty that a vaporized piece of the weapon’s shell beared the writing, “made in israel.”

Zara, I’m not sure what Israel has to do with any of this, except in a biblical context, of which Jerusalem was the site of Solomon’s temple, the temple of Israel.

Now, the Supreme Court and other official buildings are literally temples of the Illuminati, bought and paid for by the Rothschilds. Biblically speaking, Israel is being ruled by a King who follows after Baal, but that is OT.

NT is the grace administration, and the pouring out of God’s spirit upon all who chose to accept it. In the not too distant future, the book of Daniel and Revelation speak about what is to occur.

So, yes, in this context, Israel was the center of the known universe in biblical times, and will likely play a central role in future events. However, Israel is only relevant in biblical terms.

I forget, Zara, are you anti-Semitic? If you are, you’re on the wrong side of history, and prophecy. That would make you a dog. How does it feel?

I’ve read through the thread, and see you have an ax to grind about Israelis. If I was you, I would be more concerned about the new world order and global police state, than about the nation of Israel.

Israel is important from a biblical perspective, and is a prize. The battle is between Jesus and his army against the Kings of the world.

“For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”) And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.
(Revelation 16:14-16 ESV)

Man cannot defeat the great deceiver, it is only by God and his Word that will deliver salvation to the world through Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to all.

Superb writing!!!!! Thank you so much for laying out the ugly truth. Quite frankly, I cannot for the life of me understand why people are not angrier, at least the middle class. I know I am. Rise up, people!

You are truly the poster child for cognitive dissonance and language debasement.

When a neocon, or corrupt politician, or a multiational in current times uses the phrase ‘free trade’, it is obvious what their true meaning is. The 1946 era was somewhat different, that was then.

I find it amazing you did not start the deconstruction of Bastiat first, and with others’ doing the heavy lifting. It’s babe and bathwater time, folks. One aspect of Hazlitt’s book is, yes, free trade. But what of his opposition to price controls and monetary inflation and government stimulus? Obviously, when you smother the text, you approve of the converse of those.

I knew this was coming because of Lyndon LaRouche. He knows the answers. He forecasted this financial collapse ages ago. I’m better off for it. Everyone I knew thought i was crazy for listening to him and now, now they say I was right. “Yeah I say and how did it help you?” Being right doesn’t really help. Get with LaRouche people. He was the first to call for restoring the Glass Steagall Act of 19333 which is now HR1489. Of course your news medidiots have informed you of this fact I take it. No?

If the middle class is suppose to be the class in-between the lower class and the aristrocracy, it appears to me there’s never been a middle class at all. There’s been a class of strugglers who have tried to use their Unions & Constitutions to gain the grounds complementary to a middle class but what this has done mostly is create a windfall for the Union bosses and government regulators via their efforts they thought were aimed at their establishing a middle ground or middle class but it’s never happened in the history of this country from what I can see. While the proposed middle class has been trying to gain an education towards geting ahead to establish themselves as middle class, the Aristocracy is busys already producing billions in profits. So, comes along the rise of communism, collectivism or socialism but they don’t meet out change either, because to survive to produce efforts at establishing themseves towards their goals they all end up unavoidably dependent upon the Aristrocracy to fund them with jobs, money, status, recreation, housing, shopping, fuel, transportation and everything else in-between. If we ever had a self sustaining middle class at all in the United States, it sure eluded my observation that’s for sure. You can’t destroy something that NEVER existed can you? I would call all these attempts “the dependant classes” that couldn’t even have tires on their vehicles, if they didn’t depend upon the Airstocracy to supply them to them.. We might like to immagine we’ve experienced having a middle class that’s been and is being exploited but that’s a fantasy in motion. The world’s Aristocracy has forced the dependant class to use their paper money worldwide escaping the responsibilities of the US Constitution which could NEVER have happened, had there been a true middle class in the first place to keep them in check. Actually, this free for all run of the country over rulling the dependant classes proves that the middle class is only a very dull figmant of immagination or the middle class would have kept the Aristocracy in line with their Constitution. We not only have a rulling Aristocracy rulling we the dependant classes who once thought there was a design for us to become a middle class but now not only are we being rulled by OUR Aristocracy but for how many years have the dependant classes not even been able to purchase their own house but instead are so dependant that they live off of food stamps being provided by their Aristocacy and even relinquished having a legitimate job due to their Aristocracy forcing them onto 99 weeks of unemployment. Now the dependant classes are again being fed the pablum that they can appeal to their Aristocracy for a change, by again attempting to redress their grievances of no middle class through a balot box which is a very cheap way for their Aristocracy to tell the dependant classes: “NO!” NO CHANCE FOR CHANGE! Doug Casey hits the nail on the head, when he comes out and tells us OUR? country is being run by the psychopaths but what do the Aristocrates care about the psychological settings; as long as they remain the rulling class over and above their constituant depandants?

I keep trying to tell people that these so-called “booms”, and busts, such as in housing, dot coms, etc. are all created by the Powers-That-Be. But this is VERY hard for the average person to believe this because they’ve been dumbed down by the likes of American Idol and reality TV.

They’ve been told by the financial media and by their 401k benefit advisors that they should keep all their money in stocks for at least 30 years.

Alan Greenspam, yes, the misspelling is intentional, has said himself that the average American needs to increase their financial education “EXPONENTIALLY”. He didnt say “a little” or “a lot”, but “exponentially”. He knew that most don’t know that they are being screwed, or how they are being screwed.

You all should read Ayn Rand’s book “Atlas Shrugged”. I read it as a teenager (1970’s) and just re-read it. When you finish you will see that you are living what she described in her book (written in the late 40’s/early 50’s).

All living creatures have three choices when their “environment” changes: Adapt, migrate or die.

From the inane responses to what should be a serious discussion it is obvious what some of the reasons are for our problems are. However, does anyone remember a man named Ross Perot? he is famous for saying “that giant sucking sound you will hear is the sound of jobs leaving America”. I blame the American Military…. they swear an oath to defend us against ALL enemys, foreign and DOMESTIC they have not done so. They are busy defending us against phoney terrorism in the middle east. Therefore they are foresworn.

I’m old enough to remember when I almost didn’t have to ask for a raise. There was something called a “cost-of-living” increase. In 1973 my otherwise smaller salary paid for everything I needed and then some. After Reagan and his ilk, bosses responded to a raise with, “Are you crazy?”. Of course, they got their increases. It was all of that which got me looking for the real answers. I found them after many years of searching and they were along the lines of this article, a good one. I haven’t seen a real decent salary increase for decades. That was part of their plan to destroy the middle class too. You’d better believe it’s class warfare, a term the elite are afraid to hear. Mention it and you will hear nothing but denials.

Buy commodities, collectibles – tangibles – if you can and don’t waste money is my best advise.

The net worth chart using 2007 as the benchmark year is completely misleading because it is based on the illusory bloated house prices at the peak of the bubble and probably is just another concealed attempt at placing the blame on Obama. One should go back to at least 2000 to get a better picture.

@ Novista, who said, “That’s one hell of a paragraph, Russ.” I was going to give Russ Smith an English 101 lesson, but your response was a hell of a lot better.

@ eb. Pls check the right hand column of stuff on this website that is highlighted in blue. Scroll down to the topic of Admin’s recommended books. #3 on the list is “Atlas Shrugged.” Scroll further and you will also find Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” Many of the people who visit this site have read one or both. If you are a fan of “Atlas Shrugged” and agree with Ms. Rand’s philosophy, you are among friends here. This will not, however, exempt you from being hammered mercilessly if you say something stupid, the definition of which is extremely fluid.

Mr. Quinn, I was your admirer before “The Burning Platform” became a website. You are an extraordinarily gifted analyst and writer. When you use obscenities and insults to discredit those who express differing opinions, you debase yourself and lower the appeal of your otherwise wonderfully informative website. “Fuckwad?” Surely, Mr. Quinn, you are capable of more articulate and persuasive replies to dissenters.

Perhaps you don’t realize the volume of purely nonsensical drivel that shows up in the comment section?

After about the thousandth time of having a conversation interrupted by a gibbering miscreant, simply ignoring or nicely answering the schizophrenic musings of tiring theories and ignorant, repetitive attacks, don’t you think the term “Fuckwad” is an understatement?

The Burning Platform is not a tea and crumpets party… It is more like a noisy pub.

We of Gen-X have a very important task to accomplish before we depart this world: we need to save the best of Western Civilization. The Baby Boomer politicians have wrecked so much and left us with some very difficult problems. This current and third Boomer president is arguably the worst yet. Times will certainly get very difficult for many. Gen-X and the Millennials need to take the lead, pull this country together and save the best of our culture. The problems (of the NATO countries) are much bigger than the financial troubles.

[…] was delinked from gold. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)forbes.com / by Nathan Lewis / June 24, 2012 Who destroyed the U.S. middle class?The difficulties experienced by the great middle in the U.S. can be, in my opinion, traced to the […]

[…] is the 3rd and final chapter of my series about the destruction of the middle class. In Part 1 of this series I addressed where and how the net worth of the middle class was stolen. In Part 2, I […]

In US (and over the world) Jewish people tend to form highly organized minorities for seeking power and riches. By and large this happens by infiltrating certain high-end jobs (law, finance, corporate management and media) and promoting each other to influential positions within the guild. Next stage is using the riches to buy institutional support from the politicians – Jewish banks get saved, Jewish law firms have better odds at winning against the state, etc. This gives them vastly disproportionate (to their electoral numbers) influence into the decision making process of the state, creating a center of misplaced, unaccountable power.

The presence of a powerful rich minority with its own code of conduct and disproportionate access to power, which is unaccountable to the normal process (elections for people and trade law for corporations) is the very definition of hereditary aristocracy. The Jewish people may scream all they want about how oppressed they were, etc, but the matter of the fact is that they seek positions at the top of the state, push their agendas and when things fail are never accountable.

Loved reading this – you touch on many points close to my heart. There are some who think that this disingenuous inflation creep does not affect the working class because their salaries rise in lock-step with inflation… not this time round.

Not only is the middle class disappearing, the working class is being trodden into the turf.

[…] 2012This is the 3rd and final chapter of my series about the destruction of the middle class. In Part 1 of this series I addressed where and how the net worth of the middle class was stolen. In Part 2, […]

[…] is the 3rd and final chapter of my series about the destruction of the middle class. In Part 1 of this series I addressed where and how the net worth of the middle class was stolen. In Part 2, I […]